The extradition of Christian James Michel, an alleged middleman in the AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter deal, for which the CBI appears to have sweated it out, and also coming as it does before the general election, is a great headway for the Narendra Modi government. Merits or demerits notwithstanding, it appears to be a shot in the arm and advantage NDA/BJP (Page 1, “CBI confronts Michel with documents”, December 7).
R. Sampath,
Chennai
The extradition only highlights the Congress party’s track-record of running scam-tainted regimes. On the contrary, the BJP government has so far not been proved to be involved in any major scam. One hopes that with time, more facts about political corruption involving the Congress are revealed.
N. Visveswaran,
Chennai
While it is a welcome development that the Narendra Modi government has been able to secure the extradition of Christian Michel rather expeditiously, one wishes the government had also shown the same speed and resolve to secure the extradition of fraudsters such as Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi from their perches abroad to answer questions in connection with loans from public sector banks. If their extradition is delayed inordinately, an impression may gain ground that the speedy extradition of Mr. Michel was motivated more by electoral calculations than the need for unravelling the facts relating to alleged kick-backs in the helicopter deal (Page 1, “CBI confronts Michel with documents”, December 7).
M.P. Muralidharan,
Bengaluru
There is an attempt now to make a differentiation in the narrative on corruption. Who are middlemen? Are they not brokers? India has had brokers at almost every level. But what about corporates cheating banks and thumbing their noses at the law? Did they not have political support?
J.R.D. Rajakumar,
Chennai
